Duo with Alex South

I’m absolutely delighted and excited to be part of this event performing in a duo with Alex South. We are exploring the music/sound potential of voice and clarinets through improvisation. Opening the evening for a great line-up!

The event is on 21st November 2017 at The Glad Cafe in Glasgow from 8 pm.

I’m very excited to say we have now filmed Berio’s Sequenza III for Wendy Kirkup’s current moving image project, which has now been titled film from a score. Above is a digital still from the shoot, big thanks to Wendy for that.

I love this cheery post-filming photo of Wendy and I…

And here’s the film team – Caitlin, Jack and wonderful Mark Vernon recording sound…

2017 gigs

Founder and Creative Director Claire Docherty is on maternity leave from June and lovely Alex South has joined the creative team. We have also been collaborating this year with the One Ensemble, through a series of joint workshops to develop new work. We look forward to sharing in a joint performance on 7th December as listed above.

Sura Medura Exhibition

A Sura Medura exhibition is running from 21st April to 19th May 2017 at The Briggait in Glasgow. The exhibition includes a range of work by artists who have been artist-in-residence at Sura Medura in Sri Lanka.

Wave Shift, a new work made in collaboration with artist and illustrator Natasha Russell, is premiered as part of the Sura Medura exhibition. Read more about Wave Shift

Film Collaboration

I’m really delighted to be collaborating with film-maker Wendy Kirkup on her new art film focusing on Berio’s Sequenze III for Solo Female Voice (title: film from a score). The work is in its initial development phase and will unfold over the next few months.

Registered Yoga Teacher

I am very chuffed to have completed my Seasonal Yoga Teacher Training and am now a 200 hr Registered Yoga Teacher.

Integrating this nurturing, expansive process into my life has been a deeply enriching and moving journey so far. The range of asana, philosophical and contemplative practices are also a very natural extension or deepening of my creative sound and voice explorations, and feed directly into the work in a very holistic way.

Many thanks to everyone at the Seasonal Yoga Academy and to all the wonderful people I have met and shared experiences with on the journey so far.

I feel very fortunate and excited, and am looking forward to whatever the next phase will bring!

Sura Medura 3

The final stage of our residency was focused on preparing for our Moving Out event. Overall, the day at Sunbeach was a wonderful combination of visual art, sound, sculpture, video, performance, people, food, beer, Arrack sour, sea, sand, laughing, chatting, sharing…and cake (what a fabulous day for a birthday!).

We were thrilled to have a good local crowd join us for the day, and also delighted that so many people came down from the Colombo Biennale and the University Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts to join us for some or all of the time.

In our exhibition, which combined some finished elements and work-in-progress, my sound work Sabda saha Pintura was available as a headphone installation.

The title Sabda saha Pintura means sound and picture in Sinhalese – through much discussion this seemed to be the most apt translation for the collage idea I was working with in the piece. Exploring differences in the English/Sinhalese languages was very intriguing – how or in what way metaphors or concepts translate, for example, sound, soundscape, landscape, environment.

During the afternoon an audiovisual tuk tuk tour was running – a collaboration between Natasha (Russell) and me. Three people at a time could hop into Sudu’s tuk tuk and take a short round trip to visit Natasha’s work in local shops accompanied by my soundtrack. Big thanks to Sudu and Chinthaka for running the tours.

The soundtrack combined recordings I gathered from those shops – people introducing themselves and their businesses, shop sounds, etc – the general store, jewellers, barbers, a fruit and veg stall. I also recorded an introduction to the tour in Sinhalese, with pronunciation help from folk at Sunbeach.

Before a fantastic Sri Lankan curry banquet, I accompanied Samson Omiagien with some live vocals for his performance piece with sculpture, which we had rehearsed in the lead up to the event.

Later in the final week we headed up the road for the Colombo Biennale. I was absolutely delighted to have been invited by Shereen Perera to perform a live score for Video Jam – an event running as part of the opening night.

My film extract came from the beautifully strange, thoughtful film Light in the Yellow Breathing Space by Vimukthi Jayasundara.

I still have much to reflect on – such a wonderful thought-provoking time. Thanks to Neil and UZ, Chaminda, Chathura, Hasantha, Kari and all at Sunbeach, Maria and Jack, my fellow artists-in-residence, everyone I met.

Video Jam Video Clip

Here’s a short clip from the Video Jam at the opening night of the Colombo Art Biennale. The link takes you through to the Facebook page of Decibel.lk – a Sri Lankan online news, reviews and events site…